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Monday, 31 December 2007

The Best, Biggest, Most and Baddest of 2007

It's New Year's Day, a time for Bowl games, maybe a little more overeating, maybe some time for recovering from last night, and for many of us, generally a coda to the holiday season. Every year about this time we at T.O.P. cast our idiosyncratic net wide across the previous 364 days and see what still strikes us as remarkable or unusual. No one cares about our awards, which helps keep them both light and fun. Without further ado, here are our year-end plaudits as we usher out the photographic year that was.

T.O.P. Photographer of the Year 2007:Chris Jordan, for "Running the Numbers: American Self-Portrait." It's very seldom that photographic means, artistic ends, and social/economic/political meaning come together in work that looks and feels like nothing you've seen before.

Chris Jordan: Prison Uniforms, 2007. 10x23 feet in six vertical panels (Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005.)

Detail near actual size

Installed at the Von Lintel Gallery, New York city, June 2007

Chris Jordan's tableau have the beauty of abstractions and the significance of specificity. (Prison Uniforms
is just one example.) They address one of the persistent failings of
the human mind: our inability to conceive adequately of extremes of
scope and scale. Jordan found a way to address this "scope and scale blindness" with our most acute and natural sense, sight, and in so doing has opened our not just our eyes but our minds. Brilliant, and bravo.

Reviewer of the Year: Rob Galbraith, for uncovering the autofocusing malfunction in the Canon EOS 1D Mark III. As reviewers and former magazine editors, we understand only too well what kind of work it takes to discover a flaw like this, which only pales in comparison to the cojones required to go public with it and stick by your guns while the big corporate battle wagons train their sixteen-inchers on your little butt. Rob's tests were thorough and rigorous and his presentation of his findings calm yet unflinching. After some initial, um, confusion by giant Canon, the company buckled down and found the specific technical problem causing the specific malfunction—and fixed it. Meaning, everybody who bought one of these cameras or who will buy one owes Rob an enormous debt. We kowtow in RG's general direction, chanting il critico miglior.

Photo Product of the Year:Harman Gloss FB AL paper. A fine
baryta paper equally suited for black-and-white or color that mimics
the look of air-dried glossy fiber-base paper. "Images look sharper on
this paper than on any other paper we have seen.
This means you need quite a bit less of sharpening for output." —Outback Photo. See the reviews on Outback Photo and The Luminous Landscape. This paper is already spawning imitators, such as Hahnemühle FineArt Baryta, Epson Exhibition Fiber, and Ilford Gold Fiber Silk. At some point during the coming year we hope to offer you a low-priced example print made on Harman Gloss FB AL, as well as examples of a few other outstanding materials and techniques. Workin' on it.

(Note: the link is to a 5-sheet sample pack that costs less than $5. Add it to your next order and give it a try.)

Comeback of the Year: Olympus, for finally following up on the ghost of the E-1 with the new E-3. Better late than never, as they say—and that's true, although it's also worth remembering that it's better to be on time than to be late.

Photo Book of the Year (popular): Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs. No book was more popular this year with our readers, who ordered more than 200 copies through our links, far more than any other title. Not only is this book surprisingly cheap—we would normally expect to pay twice to four times its price for a book of this quality—but it adds usefully to the Adams canon in that it functions as a virtual catalogue raisonné of his works, from the beginning to the end of his long career. Not the best Adams book, but a good reference work to have whether your collection of other Adams titles is small or large—and a great place to start if your collection was previously nonexistent.

Photo Book of the Year (esoteric): Henry Wessel by Sandra Phillips, Thomas Zander, and Henry Wessel. A long-awaited and well-deserved retrospective exhibition catalog by this significant lesser master. Wessel has been true to his simple methods and his artistic vision over decades of assiduous work, and no book this year gave us greater pleasure than this one. The pictures may not be to everyone's taste, but on the other hand they are mercifully free of the styles 'n' fashions o' the moment in the always-fickle art world.

Photo Book of the Year (Technical/Historical): Nash Editions: Photography and the Art of Digital Printing by Garrett White (actually came out just a few days before 2007 began, but we're not finicky about stuff like that). In our post about it we called it "...a mandatory purchase—for anyone. It's basically the first universally
important book of photography's digital age. Nominally it is a
contemporary account of original history, a documentary of digital
printing's "incunable" period and one of its biggest early influences,
Graham Nash. And it's important enough just for that. But it's also a
wonderful collection of pictures, bringing together a large, beautiful,
and indeed inspiring portfolio from the seminal work of this studio. It
looks modest by its cover, and its title doesn't hint at its true
importance—but don't let that fool you."

Photo Book of the Year (reissue): The Photographer's Eye by John Szarkowski. MoMA has made it possible for a new generation of photographers to acquaint themselves up close and personal with its former Photography Department Director's didactic little tour of photography's essential mysteries. Not a book to love, possibly, but one to ponder for anyone who has ambitions. The reappearance of this essential little gem was made all the more poignant by Szarkowski's passing, in July of this past year, at the age of 81.

Camera of the Year: Nikon D3. A balls-to-the-wall pro model camera isn't perhaps of the greatest usefulness or relevance to most non-pro shooters, but there's little question that Nikon's new pro flagship takes top honors as the product of products for '07. The D3 outpoints its also-brand-new Canon rival in a number of areas—including high-ISO noise, apparently, long thought to be Canon's strongest suit. The tandem of the D3 and the D300 have been widely considered to be the strongest arguments yet for the resurgence of Nikon as it attempts to establish its historic position, held over several decades, as the #1 cameramaker, a title it ceded to Canon in the 1990s.

Runners-up: Olympus E-3, Sony A700, Nikon D300.

Digicam of the Year: Ricoh GR Digital II. A clear favorite (along with the original GR-D) of our readers, the GRII is a photographer's camera, with a fixed lens (modifiable by converters if you don't like the f-l) and high image quality. It's customizable, though its operational settings are direct and controllable. Although it doesn't beat a DSLR as a low-light camera, it's also a lot more pocketable, and a camera you have with you is a better camera than a camera you left at home. The GRII (available in the USA from Adorama) is the leading indicator that the "street camera" of the future may have a small sensor.

Truth be told, the time for really enthusiastic lens connoisseurship has probably passed; the image remains malleable in important respects after being reported by the lens to the recording medium, on the one hand, and on the other, the standards of design and manufacture have been mastered by the world's lensmakers to a point where most good lenses serve very well for photography without serious limits. We're in an age when some budget lenses (for instance, the Olympus 14–42mm) and lenses with downmarket names can perform at a very high standard. Still, there is something pleasing about a fine lens. Both of these are excellent examples of the art, highly competent and with admirably minimized shortcomings. Either one would do well as an only lens for most photographers on any of the cameras they fit.

Cartoon of the Year: Hey, we still love this! Can you blame us?

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Worst Camera of the Year: Fuji FinePix S8000fd. Want an inferior itty-bitty sensor without the convenience of point-and-shoot pocketability? Want an absurdly long zoom range so you'll be sure to suffer optical inferiority at both extremes, with lots of colorful purple fringing? And, you say, you want all this wrapped in a package with all the industrial stylishness of a videogame controller? Look no further than the Fuji S8000fd, which also recognizes human faces for you, in case you're not sure where in the absurdly tiny EVF viewfinder they might be.

There were, let's face it, a number of products vying for this award this year, and the S8000fd doesn't necessarily deserve to be singled out over all these others. But it's as good an example as any of "the camera as appliance," with too many features but limited controllability, and it's a paragon of several directions in camera design we just don't want to encourage. If you're thinking of this camera or one like it, please just come to your senses and buy a D40, Rebel XTi, or another solid entry-level DSLR instead.

Disappointment of the Year: The continuing emptiness of the "DMD" small street-camera category. The Sigma DP-1 didn't appear, and neither did anything else like it, despite several other important voices on the web (most notably, Thom Hogan's) joining me in calling for it. Let's hope we're not all bemoaning the same thing at the end of 2008.

Discovery of the Year: Photographer Bill Emory, who's been
working for a long time—we just didn't know it. His beautiful, sad,
and touching photo-essay "Sun Dog" was certainly one of the memorable ones of 2007 for us.

Magnanimous Gesture of the Year: The Luminous Landscape Endowment, established by Michael Reichmann with a portion of the profits from his and Jeff Schewe's epic video instruction series From Camera to Print. "The sole purpose of this not-for-profit foundation will be to provide a source of otherwise unavailable financial assistance to creative photographers. This funding may be used by photographers like you to pursue a special project, further formal photographic education, finance project related travel, or to mount an exhibition or show. Almost any worthwhile project associated with fine art photography will be considered." Despite being on the Selection Committee for the Endowment, I haven't heard anything more about it since its inception, and I do question whether such a foundation can really be viable in the long run without the services of a full-time grant writer. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time before applications are accepted and funds awarded, and in any event it's a fine, even noble, idea—whatever becomes of it. This is just the sort of thing I talk about a lot, and never do anything about. All props to MR for taking this particular bull by the horns.

_______________________

New Year's Day is a time for taking stock: looking back, looking forward; making plans, clarifying ambitions, and, of course, setting resolutions. It's a time to be both hopeful and grateful. 2007 was a fun year for me, and you and all my readers here on T.O.P. helped make it so; thank you. I have high expectations of the year to come. I hope you do too, and I wish you and your loved ones health, happiness, accomplishment, and many good memories to come. And now, off I go, to continue writing "2007" on my checks until about the end of March.

Just want to say a quick thanks to Anonymous and Martin S., whose comments I didn't post because I acted on them by making changes in the main listing. My New Year's Resolution for 2008: To not wait until December 31st to start writing the "Best of the Year" New Year's Day posting. (g)

Emm Jay,
Proof's in the pudding--or, in this case, the images. Poke around the web and look at some of the results people are getting with the 12-60mm. Looks like a very well-behaved lens, not that Olympus can really do much wrong on the lensmaking front these days.

Where can Chris Jordan's work be seen full scale? Even though he composites to get his full numbers of orange jumpsuits, just the single panel that perhaps represents the CIA's contribution would deserve standing in front of it and thinking very hard for a few moments.

And the GRDII is most readily available from Popflash. Aren't they a sponsor? They should be.

Just an opinion: Chris Jordan's work is not so much photography as it is shock imagery. (I've called it shock pointillism.) Still, since it seems to be in a class of its own it does tend to end up being grouped as photography since its 'pixels' are photographs.

I find Chris Jordan's work pretty inane, to tell the truth. If an artist wants to combine his work with politics, then he better be very, very good and the issues very, very large. Like the toothpicks thing, or the uniforms...I look at those images for a moment and my response/impulse would be something like,"Whoa...dude, like somebody pass the joint?"

I mean, the uniforms. What's that supposed to mean? That we have too many people in prison? Then what's the right number? Should we rise up and destroy capitalism because that puts people in prison...or destroy socialism, because that puts people in prison...or destroy poverty because that puts people in prison...or destroy evil because...blah blah blah. There are very few terrific art forms that capture a political essence, and that's more a product of time and usage than art effort: the American flag (terrific design and color) the Swastika (eye catching), the hammer & sickle (workers of the world, etc.) a few religious symbols -- the Cross and the Star of David. If you said "War!" how many people (what percentage) would jump up and yell "Guernica!" Probably the greatest artist of the 20th century and what many believe to be one of his greatest paintings, and how many would now recognize anything about what it meant, or means now. And Chris Jordan, I'm sorry, ain't Picasso.

Went to a Frida Kahlo show at the Walker Art Center today, very much prepared to dislike her work, and found that she was much more accomplished and subtle than I was prepared for, and I spent quite a bit of time looking at her stuff. Still, ANYTHING that she painted that had explicit reference to the political was inferior to her best stuff.

Yes the point of the prison uniform piece is exactly that we have too many people in prison. 2.5 million is an outrageous number of people to have in prison in a free society like ours and is topped only by Russia and China. China has a lot more people than the USA which can explain part of their greater number of prisoners, but they're also one of the least free countries on Earth. Russia's population is close to ours, and they have a lot less freedom too. Russia's not a totalitarian dictatorship anymore, but its also not a free society.

Most of the people in prison are there because they're poor. Rich men don't sell drugs. Rich men don't rob banks. Rich men don't steal. Middle class people don't do these things either. Why not? Because they make enough money in the legitimate economy to put a roof over their heads, eat every day, and pay the other myriad expenses that we have in our modern world. Many poor people are from families that have been poor for generations. They don't have well off parents to live with, like I did when I couldn't find a job after college. They have to find money somewhere, and that somewhere is often illegal when all other options are exhausted.

Here's what I want to know: If the government sent a check every month to every poor person in the country to give them enough to live, would it cost more than it costs to incarerate 2.5 million people? Eliminating poverty won't end crime, some crime isn't driven by economics. Jeffery Dahmer, for example, didn't kill cause he was poor (He wasn't poor). We'd still need prisons but the number of people locked up and the cost of running them would go WAY down.

While we're on that topic, i have a friend who is poor and was unemployed for a while. He had no home and was staying with whoever could keep him that night. He went to jail for a while for not paying child support. Because he had no money. None. The job market here was really bad at the time. No one was hiring, not even the crappy places like Micky D's and Wally World.

So the state puts him in jail, which makes it impossible for him to find a job if one opened up, and spends a ton of $$$ locking him up, plus the costs of finding him, arresting him, and trying his case in court. Wouldn't have been better if they helped him find a job? And if they couldn't find him one, wouldn't have been cheaper for the state to pay his $50 a week support rather than the $150 a day or so it took to keep him in jail? This is OUR tax money being wasted guys.

I'm saving my pennies for an E3 and (maybe) the 12-60 since I own a 14-54.

I will check out that paper as I am always at the mercy of the guy who does my printing. He uses Moab and Hahnemuhle which always seem nice.

On the Chris Jordan note. I find his work to be exceptionally provocative and very poignant. Call it whatever you like it works for me. And by the way, his Katrina work proves he has chops as a straight shooter as well.

I like the Harman, very interesting paper. But, Im thinking that I like the Epson stuff better as an all around paper. It's nice to see the paper makers getting away from the photo lab mentality that has dominated the look of glossy papers from the start of the digital EXPLOSION!

Chris Jordan? Seems like you had to be there and maybe I will be, someday. When I get there I'll be sure to make a comment. I do have a soft spot in my heart for the minimalists who use minimalism to express maximilism. I'm a sucker for monumental expressions of the staggering numbers and repetitions that describe the modern world. Though, I've to say, when you look at the installation shot of the Chris Jordan piece on a website jpeg, it looks like a Powerpoint™ presentation. Ha, that's the key to the whole thing (don't tell Chris I spilt the beans).

Go Ron Galbraith! Power to the people!

Who's Ansel Adams? All I know is Jacques-Henri Lartigue, the man was a party animal.

I heard they actually screwed up the digital noise that the Ricoh GRD fans were so digging. I was gonna buy that camera just for the noise, but now I'm reconsidering. Maybe I'll just buy it for the lens and then muck everything up in post.

Michael said.."balls to the wall".

David said.."That's an excellent way to make your son think that dad is cool" Right on! I did something similar except I used the "effin A" phrase in combo with some dabs of very loud "LOL's!"

..The Senior knows I'm a dork and the Freshman is getting suspicious.

Nice list, it's always interesting to see what's important to who. The OP lens poll was one of those eye openers in that respect...I'm still making payments on that one, still voting too.

You forgot to include the entry you made here on the subject of you considering the purchase of a new view camera...that was king of the hill reactionary stuff, Mike. Get it rolling.

I might be the only one who really loves Frida Kahlo's unabashed representation of her unibrow. Quite sexy, no retouching or interpolation to pump up the numbers.

Well, I totally missed the photograph about too many people in prison or destroying capitalism or all those other things. All I saw was a photograph showing a number of prison uniforms, that number being equal to the number of people imprisoned in the United States in the year 2005, no? That was the photograph. You think it's too many people, you think it's just the right number of people, you think it's only half as many people as should be imprisoned, that's YOU. That's not the photograph. The photograph was just 2.5 million uniforms. Sure was a lot of uniforms, and I think it's a terrific photograph and a terrific body of work. Makes me feel like a mere pixel pusher.

Who was it that said that all great art was political? Although probably not always the case, not even gonna go there. The thing that made me reconsider Chris Jordan after initially dismissing his work was the accompanying photo of the couple examining it. This particular body of work can only be fully appreciated and experienced in a gallery, where it can be properly viewed in all its manifestations: as both a "larger than life" abstract pattern in "the Newtonian universe," and up close and personal as one moves in and is allowed the discovery of its "subatomic" structure. Chop shop monitor viewing only presents isolated pieces of the puzzle here.

And I can't help but reflect how a very big lie can can cover up a whole multitude of sins...

John Camp,
Have you ever seen Chris Jordan's work?
Just askin'. Just sayin'....
Mike J.

No, I haven't -- not in person. I have seen repros and comments in some art magazine, or maybe more than one (I get Art Forum, Art News, Modern Painters and Art in America. Probably in one of those -- and if I remember correctly the one that struck me most sharply was a photo of stacks of shipping containers, because of the neat arrangement colors. It looked a little like a Sean Scully painting.)

But what I'd ask you, Mike, is what would the prison uniform picture mean to you, if you didn't know it was supposed to be a pile of prison uniforms? Would the photo then have any intrinsic meaning? Would it mean anything at all? What if it was a WalMart warehouse full of working mens uniforms? Would that be good or bad? The point being, the photo itself means nothing. Most of his photos need a text to make a point, and I don't think really good art does need a text. To take the prison uniforms just an example (other the toothpicks) they strike me as typical illustrations for an article in a publication like the New York Times magazine. YMMV, of course. 8-)

"what I'd ask you, Mike, is what would the prison uniform picture mean to you, if you didn't know it was supposed to be a pile of prison uniforms? Would the photo then have any intrinsic meaning? Would it mean anything at all?"

John,
I don't have time to respond to this thoughtfully right now, but I'll just say that this question strikes me as absurd, sort of like asking, "What if Moby-Dick were about cats instead of whales? Would it have the same meaning to you then?" I'm not trying to ridicule you, I'm just saying that the meaning of artwork is what's most intrinsic about it to me. I don't think that's true of everyone, or that's it's the best way to be, necessarily. It's just the way *I* am. So to me there's no way to make the piece be about something else and still be the same piece. The meaning *is* the work.